Fort Trump: New security measures ring Trump Tower

The Secret Service and New York police are going to extremes to protect Donald Trump when he's at his Manhattan home

NEW YORK (AP) — Being a midtown Manhattan neighbor of Donald Trump now that he's president-elect has come to this: navigating swarms of police officers, barricades, checkpoints and street closings that have turned Trump Tower — a tourist attraction normally open to the public — into a fortress.

The extreme security measures began going up around the landmark Fifth Avenue skyscraper on Election Day, when authorities brought in a fleet of heavy Sanitation Department trucks filled with sand to wall off the front of the glittering, 664-foot glass tower and protect it from a potential car bomb attack.

Those trucks were gone by Friday, replaced by concrete barriers stamped with the NYPD logo. But the stepped-up security — a team effort by the Secret Service, the New York Police Department and Trump's private security personnel — isn't going away.

The Secret Service and NYPD wouldn't detail what lies ahead. That will depend largely on how Trump decides to divide his time between Washington and New York and on an assessment of the vulnerabilities of Trump Tower, where the president-elect lives in a penthouse condo and his Trump Organization is headquartered.

"It's going to take a lot of planning, and it's going to take a lot of creativity," said NYPD Deputy Commissioner Steve Davis.

The heightened security has already become a concern for some high-end retailers in one of the city's busiest shopping districts, especially with the holiday season ramping up.

"We've heard a lot from the customers that it has been a real adventure even getting to us," said Kevin Hill, manager of Crocket and Jones, a shoe store on West 56th Street.

"It probably drives people away," he said of the security surge. "I thought, 'Gosh, if he comes up here every week on the weekends, that will be just a nightmare.'"